Advanced Micro Devices announced a series of executive changes Monday, including the creation of a Central Engineering Organization to oversee the company's product roadmap.

Leading the new executive appointments was the announcement that Randy Allen will replace Mario Rivas as head of the company's Computing Solutions Group. Rivas, who was an executive vice president, is leaving the company "to pursue new opportunities," the company said.

Prior to his latest appointment, Allen was responsible for AMD's server and workstation business. He will now report directly to Dirk Meyer, AMD's president and chief operating officer.

Another key appointment is the hiring of Chekib Akrout, formerly vice president of design technology at Freescale Semiconductor, to co-head the newly created Central Engineering Organization with Jeff VerHeul, AMD's corporate vice president of design engineering. This new group will report to Meyer and will oversee the development and direction of AMD's technology and product roadmaps.

Prior to Freescale, Akrout worked at IBM where "he was responsible for IBM's work on the development of the Cell processor, the Xbox 360 processor for Microsoft, and embedded PowerPC cores," AMD said.